- Mar 11, 2015
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You would figure all the great superior minds here could figure it out.
You can be a beneficiary of racism even if you’re not a racist
By Ezra Klein
The reaction to Ta-Nehisi Coates' magisterial essay on the lingering effects of American racism is polarized around people's reaction to the word "reparations." But much of the story he tells is about something simpler, and completely uncontroversial: the power of compound interest.
You might remember, as a kid, getting this problem on a test: Would you rather have $10,000 per day for 30 days or a penny that doubled in value every day for 30 days?
The answer, of course, is you want the penny that doubles in value every day. If you take the $10,000 you end up with $300,000 after the first month. Take the penny and you end with about $5 million.
What Coates shows is that white America has, for hundreds of years, used deadly force, racist laws, biased courts and housing segregation to wrest the power of compound interest for itself. The word he keeps coming back to is "plunder." White America built its wealth by stealing the work of African-Americans and then, when that became illegal, it added to its wealth by plundering from the work and young assets of African-Americans. And then, crucially, it let compound interest work its magic.
Today, white America is one of the richest and most powerful populations the world has ever known. And it wonders why African Americans just can't seem to keep up.
"The popular mocking of reparations as a harebrained scheme authored by wild-eyed lefties and intellectually unserious black nationalists is fear masquerading as laughter," Coates writes. It's also the intellectually unserious response of people who believe that because they never owned slaves or drank from a whites-only water fountain they weren't the beneficiaries of American racism. They may not be the villains of American racism, but they are the beneficiaries of it. The average white southerner in 1832 was far poorer than the average white southerner today, and part of that vast increase in wealth and income and knowledge and social networks is the result of compound interest working its magic on what the slaveowners and the segregationists stole.
It's as simple and clear as a child's math problem. The people who benefitted most from American racism weren't the white men who stole the penny. It's the people who held onto the penny while it doubled and doubled and doubled and doubled.
Debunking the worst argument against reparations
You can be a beneficiary of racism even if you’re not a racist
By Ezra Klein
The reaction to Ta-Nehisi Coates' magisterial essay on the lingering effects of American racism is polarized around people's reaction to the word "reparations." But much of the story he tells is about something simpler, and completely uncontroversial: the power of compound interest.
You might remember, as a kid, getting this problem on a test: Would you rather have $10,000 per day for 30 days or a penny that doubled in value every day for 30 days?
The answer, of course, is you want the penny that doubles in value every day. If you take the $10,000 you end up with $300,000 after the first month. Take the penny and you end with about $5 million.
What Coates shows is that white America has, for hundreds of years, used deadly force, racist laws, biased courts and housing segregation to wrest the power of compound interest for itself. The word he keeps coming back to is "plunder." White America built its wealth by stealing the work of African-Americans and then, when that became illegal, it added to its wealth by plundering from the work and young assets of African-Americans. And then, crucially, it let compound interest work its magic.
Today, white America is one of the richest and most powerful populations the world has ever known. And it wonders why African Americans just can't seem to keep up.
"The popular mocking of reparations as a harebrained scheme authored by wild-eyed lefties and intellectually unserious black nationalists is fear masquerading as laughter," Coates writes. It's also the intellectually unserious response of people who believe that because they never owned slaves or drank from a whites-only water fountain they weren't the beneficiaries of American racism. They may not be the villains of American racism, but they are the beneficiaries of it. The average white southerner in 1832 was far poorer than the average white southerner today, and part of that vast increase in wealth and income and knowledge and social networks is the result of compound interest working its magic on what the slaveowners and the segregationists stole.
It's as simple and clear as a child's math problem. The people who benefitted most from American racism weren't the white men who stole the penny. It's the people who held onto the penny while it doubled and doubled and doubled and doubled.
Debunking the worst argument against reparations
